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  • Subseries within E 101AUGMENTATION OFFICE ACCOUNTS.

    Records from the Augmentations office comprise two distinct sequences of records relating to the grants of pensions to former religious; a miscellany of records relating to the payment of those pensions; and other administrative records of the Court and its receivers of revenue.

    Warrants for the grant of pensions to former incumbents of colleges, chantries, etc

    The documents consist of a county sequence of rolls recording the proceedings of Walter Mildmay and Robert Keylway, commissioners appointed by letters patent of 20 June 1548 for the assignment of pensions to the incumbents of and ministers of colleges, chantries, free chapels and the like. The rolls indicate the value at which the prebend or other benefice or stipend of each was extended, and the amount of the pension, rated to that value, to be allowed the former incumbent. Each was to receive, under the terms of the commission, letters patent for their annuity under the seal of the Court of Augmentations. In some instances the value of the pension matched exactly the extent of their former endowment: in other instances it is taxed at amounts which varied from reducing the sum to a round figure just below the level of the extent, to an amount at two thirds of that extent, the rates being determined at the outset under the terms of the commission. In order to assist them in their task, Mildmay and Keylway themselves issued commissions of enquiry into the various counties asking for a return of those persons who had 'hitherto had relief by the colleges, chantries, free chapels and brotherhoods': that is, the names of the incumbents, with their stipends. From this, they deducted first the tenth due to the king as First Fruits, and then assigned a pension to the former incumbent. In some instances the documents in E 301 appear to be the commissioners' original certificates; in others they may be derived from those certificates in the form of a declaration. In the documents now in E 101 individual entries give the name of the incumbent and the church in which they celebrated, but do not name the prebend or the particular chantry for which the extent was taken. The rolls are signed by Mildmay and Keylway, with the examinatur of Richard Duke, clerk of the Court of Augmentations. The rolls are in Latin. According to the terms of the commission to Mildmay and Keylway these rolls, signed with their hands, were to be the warrant authorising the chancellor of the court of Augmentations to issue the appropriate letters patent under the seal of that court. The records are thus records of the Court (dissolved in 1554) rather than of the King's Remembrancer's Office.

    Commissions to enquire concerning the payment of pensions, 6 Edward VI

    The second sequence of records documents the audit of monastic and other religious pensions carried out by commissions issuing under the seal of the Court of Augmentations in 6 Edward VI. These commissions were intended in part as an audit on fraudulent practice, and hence as part of a process of retrenchment in what was a major burden on the revenues of the Court. The terms of reference included those pensions granted to former ministers of colleges and chantries under the commission of 2 Edward VI. The commissioners of 6 Edward VI, appointed in every county, were to enquire concerning the payment of pensions. They were firstly to ascertain whether the person to whom the pension had been assigned was alive or dead; whether the pension had been paid, and concerning any arrears of the same, and whether any assignment of the pensions had been made by the original grantee to a third party. To assist them in their task they were given schedules drawn out of the court's own records. For each county the schedules list, first, all the pensions granted within that county, grouped under the names of religious houses and particular secular lands forfeit or managed by the court; these name lists thus include salaries of stewards and receivers as well pensions paid to the former religious. For each county this grouped and sorted listing is then followed by name lists of chantry and other stipendiary priests without further differentiation or description. Although the commissioners could not always secure the appearance of individuals before them, nor procure information concerning their whereabouts, the documents do serve as a useful biographical record of the fortunes of individuals after the dissolution, as well as supplying their primary purpose of information and audit concerning the continuing cost to the Crown of the dissolution process.

    Marian returns

    E 101/76/26 is a return to a somewhat similar commission issued to the Bishop of Lincoln in 1554, requiring him to return to the privy council the names of those receiving pensions, and requesting, inter alia information as to whether those former religious and priests still in receipt of pensions were married or not. The files consist of commissions in pursuance sent out by the bishop's officers, with the returns to the same. Returns of all fees, annuities, pensions and corrodies still payable to religious persons in England and Wales in 2 & 3 Mary, made pursuant to 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, c 4 s 7 are in E 164/31, an indenture made between the Queen and Reginald Cardinal Pole.

    Miscellaneous

    Other records in this series include accounts and subsidiary documents of a type more widely distributed through the various classes of records properly assigned to the Augmentations Office, including many of a type commonly found in the miscellanea of that court, E 314, and in the miscellaneous volumes, E 315. They therefore include warrants for patents for payments of monastic pensions, and receipts for the same, and various accounts and subsidiary documents of the treasurer of the court Henry VIII-Mary. Later documents of similar type are in land revenue classes, especially LR 5 and LR 9. E 101/613/3 includes a duplicate of an entry book of the delivery of bonds of debtors, of which the Treasurer's copy is E 315/327, and is signed by the chancellor of the court, and the general surveyors Thomas Moyle and Walter Mildmay, as specified in the letters patent setting up the second Court of Augmentations in 1554.